MIT OpenCourseWarehttp://ocw.mit.edu

14.772 Development Economics: Macroeconomics Spring 2009

For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.

http://ocw.mit.eduhttp://ocw.mit.edu/terms

The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa

by Nathan Nunn (Harvard)

Leonard Wantchekon (NYU)

Motivation

• Nunn (QJE, 2008) documents the detrimental effects of

Africa’s slave trade on long-term economic development.

• We seek to better understand the channels of causality

underlying this reduced form relationship.

• In this paper, we examine on possible channel: the historic

evolution of a culture of mistrust among those populations

most affected by the slave trades.

The Paper’s Starting Point

• Individuals that belong to an ethnic group from which more

slaves were taken during the trans-Atlantic and Indian Ocean

slave trades exhibit lower levels of trust today.

Overview of the Paper

1. Establishing causality:

• Instrument for slave exports using the historic distance of an

individual’s ancestors from the coast, controlling for the individual’s

current distance from the coast.

• Undertake a number of falsification tests to assess the validity of the

instrument.

2. Distinguish between channels of causality: i) Internalized norms, culture (e.g., ‘rules of thumb’).

• Culture arises optimally when information acquisition is imperfect

or costly (Boyd and Richerson, 1985, 1995; Rogers 1989).

• The persistence of mistrust can also be explained by recent

models like Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales (JEEA 2007) or

Tabellini (QJE 2008).

ii) External environment, institutions (e.g., legal enforcement of

cheating).

Two Tests of Internal Norms vs. External Environment

1. Examine the relationship between the slave trade and trust, accounting

for the external environment and the trustworthiness of others.

• Examine trust in local government, controlling for its perceived

trustworthiness.

2. Construct variables that quantify the impact of the slave trade on

culture and institutions.

• Internal Norms: the impact of the slave trade on the individual’s

ancestors.

• External Environment: the intensity of the slave trade in the

geographic location where the individual is living today.

• For ‘movers’ these two measures are different.

The Deep Penetration of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

• Walter Hawthorne in his book Planting Rice and Harvesting

Slaves writes:

“the Atlantic slave trade was insidious because its effects

penetrated deep into the social fabric of the Upper

Guinea Coast–beyond the level of the state and to the

level of the village and household . . . Hence, in many

areas, the slave trade pitted neighbor against

neighbor. . . ” (pp. 106–107).

Table 1. The Method of Enslavement of Koelle’s Informants

Manner of Enslavement Percentage

Taken in a war 24.3%

Kidnapped or seized 40.3%

Sold/tricked by a relative, friend, etc. 19.4%

Through a judicial process 16.0%

Notes: The data are from Sigismund Koelle’s Linguistic Inventory. The

sample consists of 144 informants interviewed by Koelle for which their

means of enslavement is known.

Manner of Enslavement: Examples

• Sold/tricked by a relative, friend, etc:

– “sold by his relatives”

– “sold by his family”

– “sold by his brother because they could not agree”

– “sold by a supposed friend”

– “a treacherous friend enticed him on board a Portuguese

vessel”

• Through the judicial system: – “sold by the king on account of slaying a man”

– “sold on account of his family being accused of occasioning

the king’s death by means of witchcraft”

– “sold on account of his sister being accused of witchcraft”

– “sold on account of adultery”

Ethnicity Level Measure of the Impact of the Slave Trade

• We calculate estimates of the number of slaves of each ethnicity

taken during the trans-Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades.

– Our analysis considers only sub-Saharan African countries.

• Our estimates are constructed by disaggregating the country

level estimates from Nunn (QJE, 2008).

1. Atlantic slave trade.

∗ 53 samples, 80,656 slaves, 229 ethnicities

2. Indian Ocean slave trade.

∗ 6 samples, 21,048 slaves, 80 ethnicities

Table 1: Slave Ethnicity Data: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 1450–1799 Num. Num.

Region Years Ethnic. Obs. Record Type Valencia, Spain 1482–1516 77 2,675 Crown Records

Puebla, Mexico 1540-1556 14 115 Notarial Records

Dominican Republic 1547–1591 26 22 Records of Sale

Peru 1548–1560 16 202 Records of Sale

Mexico 1549 12 80 Plantation Accounts

Peru 1560–1650 30 6,754 Notarial Records

Lima, Peru 1583–1589 15 288 Baptism Records

Colombia 1589–1607 9 19 Various Records

Mexico 1600–1699 28 102 Records of Sale

Dominican Republic 1610–1696 33 55 Government Records

Chile 1615 6 141 Sales Records

Lima, Peru 1630–1702 33 411 Parish Records

Peru (Rural) 1632 25 307 Parish Records

Lima, Peru 1640–1680 33 936 Marriage Records

Colombia 1635–1695 6 17 Slave Inventories

Guyane (French Guiana) 1690 12 69 Plantation Records

Colombia 1716–1725 33 59 Government Records

French Louisiana 1717–1769 23 223 Notarial Records

Dominican Republic 1717–1827 11 15 Government Records

South Carolina 1732–1775 35 681 Runaway Notices

Colombia 1738–1778 11 100 Various Records

Spanish Louisiana 1770–1803 79 6,615 Notarial Records

St. Dominique (Haiti) 1771–1791 25 5,413 Sugar Plantations

Bahia, Brazil 1775–1815 14 581 Slave Lists

St. Dominique (Haiti) 1778–1791 36 1,280 Coffee Plantations

Guadeloupe 1788 8 45 Newspaper Reports

St. Dominique (Haiti) 1788–1790 21 1,297 Fugitive Slave Lists

Cuba 1791–1840 59 3,093 Slave Registers

St. Dominique (Haiti) 1796–1797 56 5,632 Plantation Inventories

Table 2: Slave Ethnicity Data: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 1800–1900

Num. Num.

Region Years Ethnic. Obs. Record Type American Louisiana 1804–1820 62 223 Notarial Records

Salvador, Brazil 1808–1842 6 456 Records of Manumission

Trinidad 1813 100 12,460 Slave Registers

St. Lucia 1815 62 2,333 Slave Registers

Bahia, Brazil 1816–1850 27 2,666 Slave Lists

St. Kitts 1817 48 2,887 Slave Registers

Senegal 1818 17 80 Captured Slave Ship

Berbice (Guyana) 1819 66 1,127 Slave Registers

Salvador, Brazil 1819–1836 12 871 Manumission Certificates

Salvador, Brazil 1820–1835 11 1,106 Probate Records

Sierra Leone 1821–1824 68 605 Child Registers

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 1826–1837 31 772 Prison Records

Anguilla 1827 7 51 Slave Registers

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 1830–1852 190 2,921 Free Africans’ Records

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 1833–1849 35 476 Death Certificates

Salvador, Brazil 1835 13 275 Court Records

Salvador, Brazil 1838–1848 7 202 Slave Registers

St. Louis/Goree, Senegal 1843–1848 21 189 Emancipated Slaves

Bakel, Senegal 1846 16 73 Sales Records

d’Agoué, Benin 1846–1885 11 70 Church Records

Sierra Leone 1848 132 12,425 Linguistic and British Census

Salvador, Brazil 1851–1884 8 363 Records of Manumission

Salvador, Brazil 1852–1888 7 269 Slave Registers

Cape Verde 1856 32 314 Slave Census

Kikoneh Island, Sierra Leone 1896–1897 11 185 Fugitive Slave Records

Total 80,656

Atlantic Slave Exports

0

1 - 50,000

50,001 - 100,000

10,0001 - 1,000,000 1,000,001 - 4,000,000

Courtesy of Nathan Nunn. Used with permission.

The ethnicity boundaries on this map are adapted from Map 17 "Tribal Map of Africa" in Murdock, George Peter.

Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1959. ISBN: 9780070440524. The copyright on this title has expired.

Indian Slave Exports

0

1 - 1,000

1,001 - 50,000

50,001 - 100,000

100,001 - 1,000,000 Courtesy of Nathan Nunn. Used with permission.

The ethnicity boundaries on this map are adapted from Map 17 "Tribal Map of Africa" in Murdock, George Peter.

Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1959. ISBN: 9780070440524. The copyright on this title has expired.

Afrobarometer survey data

• Survey data collected from 17 sub-Sahara African countries in

2005.

• In each country 1,200 or 2,400 citizens of voting age were

randomly sampled.

• The survey asks respondents how much they trust their

relatives, neighbors, and their local government.

• How much do you trust . . . ? – “Not at all” = 0

– “Just a little” = 1 – “Somewhat” = 2 – “A lot” = 3

Afrobarometer Countries

Figure by MIT OpenCourseWare.

Estimating Equation

trusti,e,d,c = αc + β slave exports + γ1 EFd,c + γ2 Ee,d,c/Popd,ce

+γ3missionse + X � i,e,d,c δ + εi,e,d,c where

• i indexes individuals, e ethnic groups, d districts and c countries.

• αc denote country fixed effects.

• trusti,e,d,c is our constructed measure of trust.

• slave exports is a (normalized) measure of the number of slaves taken from e

ethnic group e.

– All standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level.

• EFd,c is ethnic fractionalization in district d of country c.

• Ee,d,c/Popd,c is the share of the total population in district d that is from

ethnic group e.

• missionse is a measure of missionary penetration during colonial rule.

• Xi,e,d,c denotes a vector of individual level characteristics:

– age and age squared

– a gender indicator variable

– urban/rural indicator variable

– 5 quality of ‘living conditions’ fixed effects

– 10 education fixed effects

– 20 religion fixed effects – 25 occupation fixed effects

OLS Estimates: Trust of Others

Relatives (1)

Neighbors (2)

Local council Intra-group Inter-group

(3) (4) (5)

Full Sample

Relatives Neighbors Local

council Intra-group Inter-group (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Restricted Sample: Languages and ethnicity are the same

ln normalized slave exports -.131*** (.036)

-.156*** (.034)

-.109*** (.022)

-.138*** (.031)

-.093*** (.028)

-.156*** (.045)

-.210*** (.039)

-.149*** (.031)

-.170*** (.041)

-.141*** (.043)

Individual controls District ethnicity controls Colonial missions controls Country fixed effects

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Number of observations Number of clusters R-squared

20,062 185 0.13

20,027 185 0.16

19,733 185 0.20

19,952 185 0.15

19,765 185 0.11

7,309 71

0.15

7,298 71

0.18

6,803 71

0.20

7,263 71

0.16

7,168 71

0.12

Notes : The unit of observation is an individual. Standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level. The individual controls are for age, age squared, a gender indicator variable, 5 living conditions fixed effects, 10 education fixed effects, 20 religion fixed effects, 25 occupation fixed effects, and an indicator for whether the respondent lives in an urban location. The district ethnicity controls include a measure of ethnic fractionalization at the district level and the share of the district's population that are the same ethnicity as the respondent. The colonial missions variable is the density of mission stations (number per square kilometer) located in the area of Africa historically inhabited by the respondent's ethnic group. ***, ** and * indicates significance at the 1, 5 and 10% level.

Establishing Causality

• Instrument for slave exports using the historic distance of an

individual’s ancestors from the coast, controlling for the individual’s

current distance from the coast.

• We undertake a number of falsification tests to assess the validity of

the instruments.

� Estimate the reduced form relationship between trust and distance

from the coast:

1. Inside Africa and outside of Africa.

2. Within different regions of Africa.

Legend

Current location of respondent

Afrobarometer countries

Historic ethnic boundaries

Courtesy of Nathan Nunn. Used with permission.

The ethnicity boundaries on this map are adapted from Map 17 "Tribal Map of Africa" in Murdock, George Peter.

Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1959. ISBN: 9780070440524. The copyright on this title has expired.

14

00

D

ista

nce

to

th

e C

oas

t o

f th

e R

esp

on

den

t in

20

05

0

70

0

0 700 Average Distance to Coast of the Respondent’s Ethnic Group in the 1800s

(coef = .93, s.e. = .03, N = 21,244, R2 = .73)

1400

IV Estimates

Omitting observations with less precise Baseline sample Omitting Kenya and Tanzania data on current location

Trust of Trust of Trust of local Trust of Trust of Trust of local Trust of Trust of Trust of local Trust of Trust of Trust of local relatives neighbors council relatives neighbors council relatives neighbors council relatives neighbors council

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)

Second Stage: Dependent variable is and individual level trust measure ln normalized slave exports -.225*** -.253*** -.226*** -.207** -.152* -.169** -.256*** -.179** -.123* -.205** -.183** -.178**

(.065) (.069) (.056) (.091) (.086) (.078) (.087) (.077) (.074) (.088) (.080) (.075)

Current distance of .0001 .0002** .0001 .0001 .0003*** .0001 .0000 .0002* .0001 respondent from coast (.0001) (.0001) (.0001) (.0001) (.0001) (.0001) (.0001) (.0001) (.0001) Hausman test (p-value) 0.14 0.15 0.02 0.31 0.81 0.29 0.06 0.50 0.68 0.25 0.38 0.18 R-squared 0.13 0.15 0.19 0.13 0.16 0.19 0.13 0.16 0.19 0.14 0.16 0.20

First Stage: Dependent variable is ln normalized slave exports

Historic distance of ethnic -.0013*** -.0013*** -.0012*** -.0010*** -.0010*** -.0010*** -.0011*** -.0011*** -.0011*** -.0011*** -.0011*** -.0011*** group from coast (.0003) (.0003) (.0003) (.0003) (.0003) (.0002) (.0003) (.0003) (.0003) (.0003) (.0003) (.0003)

Current distance of -.0006*** -.0006*** -.0005*** -.0007*** -.0007*** -.0006*** -.0005*** -.0005*** -.0005*** respondent from coast (.0002) (.0002) (.0002) (.0002) (.0002) (.0002) (.0002) (.0002) (.0002) Individual controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes District ethnicity controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Colonial missions controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Country fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Number of observations 20,062 20,027 19,733 19,618 19,585 19,298 17,754 17,721 17,514 13,986 13,956 13,591 Number of clusters 185 185 185 184 184 184 151 151 151 182 182 182 F -statistic 70.41 57.19 78.26 139.55 99.65 153.85 200.02 133.22 156.34 116.47 99.28 103.95 F -stat of excl. instrument 19.22 19.25 19.30 14.86 14.89 15.15 14.08 14.09 14.29 16.96 17.02 16.85 R-squared 0.68 0.68 0.69 0.69 0.69 0.70 0.69 0.69 0.72 0.70 0.70 0.72

Notes : The table reports IV estimates. The top panel reports the second stage estimates and the bottom panel reports first stage estimates. Columns 1-6 reports estimates with the full sample of observations. Columns 7-9 report estimates with Kenya and Tanzania omitted from the sample, and columns 10-12 report estimates where observations with less precise current location data are omitted from the sample. All standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level. The individual controls are for age, age squared, a gender indicator variable, 5 'living conditions' fixed effects, 10 education fixed effects, 20 religion fixed effects, 25 occupation fixed effects and an indicator for whether the respondent lives in an urban location. The district ethnicity controls include a measure of ethnic fractionalization at the district level and the share of the district's population that are the same ethnicity as the respondent. The colonial missions variable is the density of mission stations (number per square kilometer) located in the area of Africa historically inhabited by the respondent's ethnic group. The null hypothesis of the Hausman test is that the OLS estimates are consistent. ***, **, and * indicates significance at the 1, 5 and 10% levels.

Falsification Tests

• Estimate the reduced form relationship between trust and

distance from the coast:

1. Inside Africa and outside of Africa. – If distance from the coast only affects trust through the

slave trade, then we do not expect to find a reduced form

relationship outside of Africa.

2. Within different regions of Africa.

– We do not expect to find a reduced form relationship in

the parts of Africa unaffected by the slave trade.

Reduced Form Inside & Outside of Africa

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Trust of Local Government Council

Afrobarometer Sample Asiabarometer Sample

(5) (6)

Afrobarometer Sample

(7) (8)

WVS Non-Africa Sample

Inter-Group Trust WVS

Nigeria

(9)

Distance from the coast .0004*** .0003*** .0001 -.0082 .0004*** .0004*** -.0003 -.0002 .0008***

(.0001) (.0001) (.0001) (.0075) (.0001) (.0001) (.0002) (.0002) (.0001)

Country fixed effects

Individual controls

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

n/a

Yes

Number of observations

Number of clusters

19,859

185

19,859

185

5,409

57

5,409

57

19,970

185

19,970

185

10,308

107

10,308

107

974

16

R-squared 0.16 0.18 0.19 0.22 0.09 0.10 0.09 0.11 0.06

Notes : The unit of observation is an individual. The dependent variable in the Asiabarometer sample is the respondent's answer to the question: "How much do you trust your local government?". The categories for the answers are the same in the Asiabarometer as in the Afrobarometer. The dependent variable in the WVS sample is the respondent's answer to the question: "How much do you trust people in general?". The categories for the respondent's answers are: "not at all'', "not very much'', "neither trust nor distrust'', "a little'', completely. The responses take on the values 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. Standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level in the Afrobarometer regressions and at the location level in the Asianbarometer and the WVS samples. When the dependent variable is trust in the local government council, the individual controls are for age, age squared, a gender indicator variable, education fixed effects, and religion fixed effects. When the dependent variable is inter-group trust, the individual controls are for age, age squared, a gender indicator, an indicator for living in an urban location, and occupation fixed effects. ***, **, and * indicates significance at the 1, 5, and 10% levels.

Reduced Form within Africa trusti,e,d,c = β1 distance from coaste

+β2 distance from coaste × slave exportsc

+X � i,e,d,c δ + γ1 EFd,c + γ2 Ee,d,c/Popd,c

+γ3 missionse + αc + εi,e,d,c

• where slave exports is our measure of slave exports at the c country-level.

Reduced Form within Africa

(1) (2) Trust of relatives

(3) (4) Trust of neighbors

(5) (6) Trust local council

Historic distance from coaste ×

Country level slave exportsc

Historic distance from the coaste

-.0004** -.0003**

(.0002) (.00015)

.0012*** .0010***

(.0003) (.0002)

-.0004* -.0003*

(.0002) (.00017)

.0014*** .0010***

(.0003) (.0003)

-.00026** -.0002**

(.00015) (.00012)

.0010*** .0008***

(.0002) (.0002)

Country fixed effects

All control variables

Number of observations

Number of clusters

R-squared

Yes Yes

No Yes

20,062 20,062

185 185

0.12 0.14

Yes Yes

No Yes

20,027 20,027

185 185

0.12 0.15

Yes Yes

No Yes

19,733 19,733

185 185

0.16 0.20

Notes : The unit of observation is an individual. Standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level. The individual controls are for age, age squared, a gender indicator variable, 5 'living conditions' fixed effects, 10 education fixed effects, 20 religion fixed effects, 25 occupation fixed effects, an indicator for whether the respondent lives in an urban or rural location, ethnic fractionalization in the respondent's district, the share of the population of the respondent's ethnic group in the district, and the density of mission stations located in the area of Africa historically inhabited by the respondent's ethnic group. `Country level slave exports' is the log normalized number of slaves taken from each country. The variable has been normalized to range between 0 to 1. It has a mean of 0.59 and a standard deviation of 0.32. ***, **, and * indicates significance at the 1, 5 and 10% levels.

Channels of Influence • To what extent does the relationship between the slave trade

and trust work through:

1. Internal beliefs, values, and norms (e.g., rules-of-thumb).

2. The external environment.

A ‘Test’ of Internal Norms vs. External Environment

• Part of the reason that an individual’s trust of the local

government may differ is because the trust-worthiness of the

governments may differ.

• The slave trade may affect an individual’s trust of the

government by affecting the government’s trustworthiness.

• We control for each respondent’s view of the performance of

their local government.

Performance Corruption of local of local Councillors council council listen? Trust in local government council

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

ln normalized slave exports -.079*** .077*** -.050** -.114*** -.059*** -.057*** -.057*** (.018) (.032) (.025) (.022) (.016) (.015) (.014)

Performance measure .337*** (.013)

Corruption measure n/a n/a n/a -.214*** (.014)

Councillors listen measure n/a n/a n/a .135*** (.014)

Performance fixed effects n/a n/a n/a No No Yes Yes Corruption fixed effects n/a n/a n/a No No Yes Yes Councillor listens fixed effects n/a n/a n/a No No Yes Yes Indicator variables for the presence of 5 different public goods

n/a n/a n/a No No No Yes

All control variables Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Country fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Number of observations 18,540 17,266 18,436 15,748 15,748 15,748 15,748 Number of clusters 185 185 185 185 185 185 185 R-squared 0.15 0.15 0.09 0.20 0.36 0.36 0.36

Notes : The unit of observation is an individual. Standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level. The 'indicator variables for 5 different public goods' are for the existence of the following public goods in the responedent's town or village: school, health clinic, sewage, piped water, and electricity. 'All control variables' includes our full set of individual level control variables, district ethnicity control variables, and our measure of colonial missions. ***, ** and * indicate significance at the 1, 5 and 10% levels.

A Second ‘Test’ of Internal Norms vs. External Environment

• Intuition: An individual’s beliefs and values are internal to the

individual (and can move), while institutions are environment

(and location) specific.

• We construct a second slave exports measure:

– The average number of slaves historically taken from the

environment/location where the individual lives today.

• Recall, the baseline measure is the average number of slaves

taken from an individual’s ethnic group in the past.

Legend

Current location of respondent

Afrobarometer countries

Historic ethnic boundaries

Courtesy of Nathan Nunn. Used with permission.

The ethnicity boundaries on this map are adapted from Map 17 "Tribal Map of Africa" in Murdock, George Peter.

Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1959. ISBN: 9780070440524. The copyright on this title has expired.

Movers vs. Non-movers

Difference: Movers Non-movers (Movers -Non-movers)

Variable Obs. Mean Obs. Mean Mean S.d.

Trust measures:

Trust in relatives 9,049 2.243 11,113 2.141 0.102*** 0.014

Trust in neighbors 9,029 1.810 11,097 1.683 0.122*** 0.014

Trust in local council 8,791 1.665 10,973 1.676 -0.011 0.016

Slave export measures:

ln normalized ethnicity based slave export measure 9,381 0.458 11,863 0.473 -0.015 0.012

ln normalized geographic location based slave export measure 9,381 0.603 11,863 0.473 0.130*** 0.016

Control variables:

Currently living in an urban city 9,381 0.387 11,863 0.351 0.037*** 0.007

Age 9,260 35.63 11,730 37.08 -1.443*** 0.204

Gender = Male 9,381 0.501 11,863 0.499 0.002 0.007

Secondary school education or higher 9,354 0.441 11,812 0.440 0.001 0.007

Ethnic fractionalization in current district 9,381 0.431 11,863 0.388 0.044*** 0.004

Share of ethnic group in current district 9,381 0.531 11,863 0.649 -0.118*** 0.005

Current distance from coast 9,381 421.41 11,863 441.83 -20.41*** 4.66

Historic prevalence of colonial missions 9,381 0.235 11,863 0.202 0.033*** 0.005

Notes : The unit of observation is an individual. 'ln normalized ethnicity based slave export measure' is our baseline measure of slave exports used throughout the paper; it is the log of the number of slaves taken from an individual's ethnic group normalized by the size of the ethnic group (measured by land area). 'ln normalized geographic location based slave export measure' is our alternative measure of slave exports, which is the log of the number of slaves taken from the location where an individual is currently living (normalized by land area). ***, **, and * indicate significance at the 1, 5 and 10% levels.

A Second ‘Test’ of Internal Norms vs. External Environment

Trust of relatives Trust of neighbors Trust local council

Baseline sample Movers only Baseline sample Movers only Baseline sample Movers only (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

ln normalized ethnicity based slave -.108*** -.085*** -.136*** -.076*** -.100*** -.068*** export measure (.030) (.031) (.029) (.030) (.020) (.022)

ln normalized geographic location -.057*** -.039** -.055*** -.024 -.029** .000 based slave export measure (.011) (.017) (.014) (.016) (.013) (.021)

All control variables Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Country fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Number of observations 19,618 8,787 19,585 8,768 19,298 8,566 Number of clusters 184 162 184 162 184 162 R-squared 0.14 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.19 0.21

Notes : The unit of observation is an individual. Standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level. 'ln normalized ethnicity based slave export measure' is our baseline measure of slave exports used throughout the paper; it is the log of the number of slaves taken from an individual's ethnic group normalized by the size of the ethnic group (measured by land area). 'ln normalized geographic location based slave export measure' is our alternative measure of slave exports, which is the log of the number of slaves taken from the location where an individual is currently living (normalized by land area). 'All control variables' includes our full set of individual level control variables, district ethnicity control variables, and our measure of colonial missions. ***, ** and * indicates significance at the 1, 5 and 10% level.

Conclusions

1. The paper provides micro-level evidence of the effect of the

slave trade on trust today.

• Causal estimates rely on variation of an individual’s

ancestors from the coast, conditioning on the individual’s

current distance from the coast. 2. We also show that much of the effect works through the slave

trade’s effect on the transmission of norms and values, internal

to the individual.

• Complements recent studies identifying the historical origins

of differences in cultural norms (e.g., Tabellini, 2005; Guiso,

Sapienza and Zingales, 2008).

Reduced Form Inside & Outside of Africa

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Trust of Local Government Council

Afrobarometer Sample Asiabarometer Sample

(5) (6)

Afrobarometer Sample

(7) (8)

WVS Non-Africa Sample

Inter-Group Trust WVS

Nigeria

(9)

Distance from the coast .0004*** .0003*** .0001 -.0082 .0004*** .0004*** -.0003 -.0002 .0008***

(.0001) (.0001) (.0001) (.0075) (.0001) (.0001) (.0002) (.0002) (.0001)

Country fixed effects

Individual controls

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

n/a

Yes

Number of observations

Number of clusters

19,859

185

19,859

185

5,409

57

5,409

57

19,970

185

19,970

185

10,308

107

10,308

107

974

16

R-squared 0.16 0.18 0.19 0.22 0.09 0.10 0.09 0.11 0.06

Notes : The unit of observation is an individual. The dependent variable in the Asiabarometer sample is the respondent's answer to the question: "How much do you trust your local government?". The categories for the answers are the same in the Asiabarometer as in the Afrobarometer. The dependent variable in the WVS sample is the respondent's answer to the question: "How much do you trust people in general?". The categories for the respondent's answers are: "not at all'', "not very much'', "neither trust nor distrust'', "a little'', completely. The responses take on the values 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. Standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level in the Afrobarometer regressions and at the location level in the Asianbarometer and the WVS samples. When the dependent variable is trust in the local government council, the individual controls are for age, age squared, a gender indicator variable, education fixed effects, and religion fixed effects. When the dependent variable is inter-group trust, the individual controls are for age, age squared, a gender indicator, an indicator for living in an urban location, and occupation fixed effects. ***, **, and * indicates significance at the 1, 5, and 10% levels.

Reduced Form within Africa trusti,e,d,c = β1 distance from coaste

+β2 distance from coaste × slave exportsc

+X � i,e,d,c δ + γ1 EFd,c + γ2 Ee,d,c/Popd,c

+γ3 missionse + αc + εi,e,d,c

• where slave exports is our measure of slave exports at the c country-level.

Reduced Form within Africa

(1) (2) Trust of relatives

(3) (4) Trust of neighbors

(5) (6) Trust local council

Historic distance from coaste ×

Country level slave exportsc

Historic distance from the coaste

-.0004** -.0003**

(.0002) (.00015)

.0012*** .0010***

(.0003) (.0002)

-.0004* -.0003*

(.0002) (.00017)

.0014*** .0010***

(.0003) (.0003)

-.00026** -.0002**

(.00015) (.00012)

.0010*** .0008***

(.0002) (.0002)

Country fixed effects

All control variables

Number of observations

Number of clusters

R-squared

Yes Yes

No Yes

20,062 20,062

185 185

0.12 0.14

Yes Yes

No Yes

20,027 20,027

185 185

0.12 0.15

Yes Yes

No Yes

19,733 19,733

185 185

0.16 0.20

Notes : The unit of observation is an individual. Standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level. The individual controls are for age, age squared, a gender indicator variable, 5 'living conditions' fixed effects, 10 education fixed effects, 20 religion fixed effects, 25 occupation fixed effects, an indicator for whether the respondent lives in an urban or rural location, ethnic fractionalization in the respondent's district, the share of the population of the respondent's ethnic group in the district, and the density of mission stations located in the area of Africa historically inhabited by the respondent's ethnic group. `Country level slave exports' is the log normalized number of slaves taken from each country. The variable has been normalized to range between 0 to 1. It has a mean of 0.59 and a standard deviation of 0.32. ***, **, and * indicates significance at the 1, 5 and 10% levels.